Book Description

The da Vinci goes on a dangerous salvage mission: to rescue the U.S.S. Orion from a gas giant. As if the turbulent atmosphere of the planet wasn't enough, the Orion is carrying the prototype of the deadly Wildfire device -- a protomatter warhead that can ignite gas giants into stars. But the operation may be more than even Capt. David Gold's crack team of engineers can handle, as they have to fight against the liquid atmosphere of the planet, the volatility of the Wildfire warhead -- and a strange alien life-form that may be responsible for the attack on the Orion!

The da Vinci goes on a dangerous salvage mission: to rescue the U.S.S. Orion from a gas giant. As if the turbulent atmosphere of the planet wasn't enough, the Orion is carrying the prototype of the deadly Wildfire device -- a protomatter warhead that can ignite gas giants into stars. But the operation may be more than even Capt. David Gold's crack team of engineers can handle, as they have to fight against the liquid atmosphere of the planet, the volatility of the Wildfire warhead -- and a strange alien life-form that may be responsible for the attack on the Orion!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Mack is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty-five novels, including the Star Trek Destiny and Cold Equations trilogies. He co-developed the acclaimed Star Trek Vanguard series and its sequel, Star Trek: Seekers. His writing credits span several media, including television (for episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), film, short fiction, magazines, comic books, computer games, and live theater. He currently resides in New York City.

This story does just about the best job I've seen of any Star Trek book of conveying the emotions a crew will feel during a disastrous mission when many of their crewmates die. I dock it one star because the threat itself seemed rather contrived and had a definite feel of "seen that before, been there, done that"; both the alien energy intelligences living in the gas giant atmosphere and the protomatter terraforming device have been done before, and I have my doubts that Starfleet would ever consider using such a thing. But the character interactions were perfect, and the heroism displayed by the whole crew, including minor characters, was a delight to see; this is what I read Star Trek for: the idea that human beings (and other sentient life forms) are capable of great heroism is somewhat passe in most other forms of literature these days, and I enjoy seeing characters responding to crises with competence and true heroism now and again.

So I finished the latest SCE anthology Wildfire. Overall, it's one of the better books of the year despite some quibbles. Won't prattle on, so here's some thoughts on the individual stories.

"Enigma Ship": An interesting tale of a completely holographic starship. Among the stories of the SCE, it's a pretty standard problem-solving storyline, but I liked the idea of a ship that's a whole hologram. All of the character work was pretty good and being a Trek ship nut, I really liked seeing one of the characters designing an SCE starship in his spare time. However, the ending got very muddled as to what happened and how it was resolved.

"War Stories": A great little collection of stories about the crew of the da Vinci during the Dominion War. The unifying story about Biron going through the files of the crew to better understand them is fairly disposable and feels more like set up for some confrontation in the future. Of the four smaller stories within the novella, the last two dealing with Gomez and the da Vinci's mission to the communications array were my favorite. These two had the most sustained and descriptive battle scenes and were the most enjoyable. Bart's story was noteworthy for his first meeting with Anthony.

"Wildfire": Leaving aside the fact that the whole plot is a complete rip-off of James Cameron's The Abyss, save for one crucial difference, the much talked about two-parter is quite good. It was interesting reading about a rescue ship that needed rescuing and there was good sustained tension throughout. I'm seriously not a person that thinks change for the sake of itself is really necessary, so I'm not entirely sold on the idea of wasting half the crew to "shake things up". The segment with the repeated scenes of death over and over again eventually deadens the impact it might have had i.e. any time a character's background or family was mentioned, you might as well as kiss that character good-bye because they're about to bite the dust. So the tragedy is laid on pretty thick, but I can appreciate the attempt to get more serious with the SCE, a series that has always taken more chances to begin with.

Overall, a very solid batch of stories this time around. The SCE continues to be my favorite ship-based Trek book series. It's too bad that they're slashing the Trek book production by half, meaning we're going to have to just scrap by as the SCE paperback offerings will become increasingly meager.Read more ›

As far as its written, well. As a premise I wonder what where they thinking when someone pitched this idea and someone else said yes. As another reviewer so aptly put it, I read for the escapism, to be entertained, sometimes to have my mind blown away with an interesting concept or a nice commentary. This appeared to me as an author having a bad day and taking it out on the characters. The other review, titled lost as a reader is right. The next several books does not just dwell on the aftermath, they wallow in it. What began as a series I had bought faithfully and loved the premise and characters, turned into a fading glory.

In somewhat fairness it seems to be the trend these days. Killing off characters to prove they can die and there is jeopardy we (the readers) should expect and not gloss over. However, I read (or watch a series, yes I mean you SG and SGA) to bond with a set of characters and go through adventures not with the will they survive mentality, but with either how do they get out of this one or purely to go through the adventure with them seeing them react and how it affects them.

If the goal of the author was to make all these deaths so heroic, it failed. The deaths were cheapened by the sheer number of them. I could only go through so much before it changes from oh no, not him/her, before it became oh not another one.

Worst of all, we have to read about the survivors wallowing in grief (not just grieving I mean -wallowing-) for books, -books- to come. I've actually stopped reading the series now (several books later).

Its a shame this book couldn't be taken back and said 'ooops we didn't mean it', but its here. If you love deaths a plenty, buy it. If not, don't bother. I'd say skip it, but the next several books will visit this one again, and again, and again ad nauseam. I do mean that.

Its a shame, the ending of a great series. I'll have the earlier books of their 'golden era' to enjoy.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the "SCE" series, and have read them in order. Characters and relationships are what makes Star Trek books great. While the stories in this book were well-written, and I have enjoyed these authors in past books, I found this book much less enjoyable due to the widespread death and destruction. The ending of "Wildfire" ensured that the next book will be even less enjoyable. I read Star Trek books for pure escapism. I don't want to be weighed down with grief. I read to be entertained. And they killed off the most entertaining character, for pete's sake! I don't plan on suffering throught the emotional fallout the next book promises.